Widow Sues Southwest Airlines, Flight Crew for Wrongful Death

April 20, 2015

A woman has filed a lawsuit that accuses Southwest Airlines and a flight crew of leaving her husband to die in an airplane bathroom.

Richard Ilczyszyn suffered a pulmonary embolism on a Southwest Airlines flight when flight attendants heard him groaning in the plane's restroom. After finding him slumped over, the airline called the Sheriff's department while the plane was about to land in Orange County.

Sheriff's deputies cleared the flight before checking in on Ilczyszyn, who died in the bathroom.

Ilczyszyn's widow Kelly, who is a flight attendant for Southwest, says the crew should have called an ambulance, not the Sherriff's department.

Southwest Airlines released a statement saying that their flight attendants handled the emergency appropriately by arranging for first responders to meet the flight.